Descartes' Error - Antonio Damasio

I confess that I got a bit lost in all the science within the book.  Nonetheless, I am able to grasp Damasio's main ideas in this text.  I definitely agree with him that the mind-body separation is inaccurate and that emotion plays a very important role in our ability to reason well.

I think the text gives more credence as to why we should not make judgements on certain segments of people like addicts (of drugs or non-drugs, activities) at face value as the examples of Phineas Gage and Eliot demonstrates.  There may be circumstances of the individuals that we are not aware of.  Damasio's arguments also require that we reevaluate our justice and medical systems when dealing with individuals such as Gage and Eliot.  As Damasio points out, it is wrong to blame such a person's inability to function well in society as mere character or psychological weakness.  Modern day society is certainly prone to this blame game and I confess that I have fallen into the trap also.

If a person lacks the emotional and thus the rational ability to predict future outcomes beneficial to one's self, to loved ones and to her/his society, can we really blame them for their actions?

Can we blame Medea for her passion for revenge?  I do not know but within a modern day context, if a modern day Medea exists and if it is determined that she possesses a 'deficiency' similar to that of Eliot, I do think that killing Medea or locking her away for life in a mental ward are not ways to effectively help her nor help society.

As mentioned in my entry on Hume, I concur with Hume and now Damasio that reason and passion both play a role in our ability to function in society and to maximize our well being and happiness.  I used my veganism as an example in which I feel that the somatic markers that I experience when thinking of animal or animal byproducts in our food, clothing and beyond 'prevents' me from consuming them anymore.  In this particular issue of veganism, I feel that it is the desensitization of the once living animals as our boots/food/chair, which Damasio touched upon in the context of children being desensitized to violent imagery, that perpetuates our unethical treatment of animals, rather than any particular deficiency or damage in the brain/mind.

In Defense of Occupy

The global Occupy revolution[1] has been weighing heavily on my mind for the past month.  The same issues surrounding morality, enlightenment, democracy, justice and governance continue to gnaw at us today, centuries after the Age of Enlightenment, although under different circumstances.   As with Kant’s time, we are still grappling with the question of how to generate public enlightenment.  While I agree with Kant (1784) that self-incurred tutelage[2], laziness and cowardice are reasons for the lack of public enlightenment (para. 1), I have deep qualms with his ‘argue as much as you want but obey’ advocacy (para. 7) within our modern day context.

Want to fight economic injustices, environmental degradation or the erosion of civil liberties and human rights?  Then, write a letter to the Premier.  Sign a petition.  Go work for World Vision.  Make a donation to Amnesty International.  In other words, voice your concerns but do it within the confines of the law.  Obey.  Business as usual.

I agree with Kant that the contradictions arising from one's use of public versus private reasoning creates dissent but how to activate this dissent in an experiential and material way?  I feel trapped in this paradox right now and have been for a long time...  I argue that the inability to reconcile one’s public and private reasoning would lead to a state of cognitive dissonance.

   Cognitive dissonance necessarily involves reason pitted against passion.  To counter and reconcile one’s cognitive dissonance requires that one integrates public reasoning with private reasoning.  This necessitates not just dissent external to our duties to our government but active resistance as well.  One significant difference between our time and Kant’s time is the current collusion between corporate power and the government. If our government is one of the sources of various injustices, I argue that it is our duty not just to dissent but also to also actively resist.  If we continue to obey and to conduct business as usual, how can social change really occur? Would we not merely be paying lip service to issues of social justice then?  With this in mind, I argue that within our modern day context, civil disobedience is a necessary element to exact social change. 

Public reasoning cannot be separated from private reasoning.  If we merely have the freedom to speak our minds but we continue to act as cogs within the machinery of everyday life, victory for social change from our current Machiavellian model of government can only be partial.  Partial victories such as the postponement of Keystone XL Pipeline or the recent Supreme Court ruling that long time political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence is unconstitutional are still part of a long process towards progress and mark the slow continuing revolution of change.  Change comes in small spurts and not with immediacy.  We must not settle for partial victories and we should continue fighting for social justice. 

            I think that in many instances, our western society tolerates dissent, especially when it is in the form of “folly” or humour but resistance is something to be shunned upon.  Scathing critiques of corporations, of governments and their leaders are tolerated by the public when they are presented in comedic forms by Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart or George Carlin but block a busy intersection within the financial district or occupy a public space, in other words, disrupt business as usual and you will be chastised, arrested, fined or worse, assaulted by the police.  The question of how to create social awareness and enlightenment remains.  How to change mainstream perception of resistance from something bad to something good?  I am not going to purport to know the answer but I argue that passion (sentiment) acts as the glue that holds one’s rational thoughts about social injustices together and propels our reason into action.  Malcolm X asserts that it is only when one feels angry about one’s condition that one acts to bring about change[3].  I am in agreement with this statement and concur with Hume that both reason and passion/sentiment constitute our thinking mind.  It would however not only be unfair but also inaccurate to claim that reason trumps passion or vice versa.  I argue that both reason and passion are part of a continuum in our ability to emancipate ourselves from the self-incurred tutelage that Kant speaks of.

I agree with Hume (1751) that we are generally self-serving creatures but we are also social creatures capable of non-selfish concerns for humans and non-humans alike (pp. 42-43).  As ensembles of social relations, we are dependent on each other.  Furthermore, our ideas are never derived exclusively from within ourselves – they are borrowed, shared and passed down.  This unity with other beings from the past, present and future in an abstract and tangible sense is how I interpreted Descartes’ (1637) concept of the immortal soul (pp. 48-49).  Descartes, Hume and Kant lived centuries before us and yet the issues of human nature that consumed them continue to consume us today. In essence, human reason and passion live go on forever, as long as we exist.

Hume’s argument on the usefulness of utility makes good sense as a means of maintaining social harmony and is reminiscent of Mencius’ philosophy of governance.  While I do not subscribe to Hume’s (1751) assertion that one should strive for fame in order to keep one’s character in check (p. 77), I do consent to the self-reflection that such a pursuit enacts.  If we constantly apply self-reflexivity within a social context, this enables us to understand the “Other”, to feel empathy and/or anger for another person’s cause which will hopefully in turn motivate us to act according to what is ethical or moral.  This self-reflexivity involves the synthesis of applied reasoning and passion.  I believe that this union is the key to public enlightenment or social awareness, which in turn generates experiential reality and active resistance. 

When the majority of the world’s population lives in poverty and a small number of humans live in extreme wealth, we have a duty to speak out and to act.  The Humean utilitarian argument should (and does) compel some of us to act in solidarity with those personally affected by poverty, ecological destruction or loss of civil liberties and human rights.  It should not matter whether one is personally affected by poverty or not.  The majority’s well being should be our concern and is a marker of our society’s virtue (or lack thereof) and in turn, our personal virtue.   It is thus unfair to criticize the educated middle-class activists in Occupy who are not just speaking against social injustices but also acting against social injustices, in a non-violent revolution[4]. 

The paradox of resistors fighting capitalism, especially in its neoliberal expression while actively participating as consumers and producers of capitalism is not lost to me.  As history has shown, life is full of paradoxes (Kant, 1784, para. 13).  Perhaps this is just a fact of life that we cannot really fully alter.  We can however reduce the paradox of capitalism and the restriction of freedom through state oppression in strong and large numbers, working in solidarity with each other. The absent referent stories of horrific working conditions of those who built our computers or who manufactured our clothes are not apparent to us.  We will probably never ever meet the men, women and children whose lives are similar to those of indentured slaves, who created our material goods.  Out of sight and thus out of our consciousness.  But if we allow the workers voices to be heard and actively resist in solidarity with them, we can work towards a better society.

While paradoxes and failures exist in life, history has also shown fine examples of selfless acts in which humans jeopardize their own lives and their family’s well being to do the right action by complete strangers because they feel in their heart that injustice is being committed and it is their duty to resist[5].  If laws are enforced on the basis of the happiness of a few (shareholders of an oil corporation) over the happiness and well being of the majority (human and non-human residents of the oil-rich area), then there is no utilitarian purpose to these laws anymore.  The Humean conception of justice thus allows and requires us to resist the laws since the utility of the law is being disregarded (Hume, 1751, pp. 33-34).  

Even if Occupy is reaching for an ideal state that can never be fully attained, why should we strive for less and act in Machiavellian ways towards each other?  The ‘folly’ of idealism provides us with hope and the courage to act and to move forward in our journey towards a better society.

References

Descartes, R.  (2008).  A Discourse on the Method (I. Maclean, Trans).  Oxford: Oxford

University Press.  (Original work published 1637)

Hume, D.  (1983).  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.  J. B. Schneewind, (Ed.). 

Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.  (Original work published 1751)

Kant, I.  (1997). Modern History Sourcebook: Immanuel Kant: What is Enlightenment?,

1784 (P. Halsall, Trans).  Retrieved from

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kant-whatis.asp

Mencius (D. C. Lau, Trans.).  (2004).  London: Penguin Classics.

Machiavelli, N.  (1995).  The Prince (G. Bull, Trans.).  London: Penguin Classics.  (Original

work published 1515)

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[1] Revolution as in a political awakening, not the violent revolution that Kant speaks of.

[2] “Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.” (Kant, 1784, para. 1).

[3] Apologies, Steve.  I am not sure where this quote is from and so I am not able to add the source to my references.

[4] Most of the violence that has occurred in Occupy has been that of armed state thug (a.k.a. the increasing militarized police) oppression towards the mostly non-violent Occupiers.

[5] e.g. Germans shielding Jewish strangers during the Holocaust or Hutus shielding Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide.

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

The Awakening, a sensuous novel, I enjoyed it very much.  It is nice to finally read more from female authors.  As a student who has most recently been studying anthropology courses, this novel reads like a narrative on an ethnography of a married's woman's life just before the turn of the 19th century.

Edna is clearly resisting gender and societal mores and norms.  She exposes explicitly women's sexuality, a taboo subject during her time.  She reasserts herself as an individual and as a woman, as opposed to as her husband's property.   She 'breaks loose', moves out, tries to support herself - she realizes in the sad ending that to be independent is to be alone as Mademoiselle Reisz is.  Mutual love that cannot ever be realized between Edna and Robert.

Edna's children do not seem to get much attention from her as she is busy with her personal awakening but in the end, she sacrfices herself so as not to taint their reputations and future.  Is it a sacrifice of love for her children? I am not clear.  The children are talked about at some points as a burden as while she can sever her ties on her husband, she cannot do so with her children.  They weigh her down.  She ends her life to end her loneliness/misery which she knows will accompany her whole life as an independent woman.  Did she 'awaken' and remembered her children in the end?  I am not sure...

I can certainly relate to Edna's awakening.  Many of us have in our own ways, broken out of our old molds by breaking social and gender norms.  Not all women have a maternal instinct.  I have not really desired to procreate, not because I view them as a burden, on the contrary, I adore and love kids and generally feel happy around them but I am too afraid to take the risk to become a mother and I just do not see the need to create a mini-me.  I have fallen into the trap in the past that independence meant empowerful, which it is in many days, but if one is still mentally in chains, one cannot truly be free.  I was once in love and I was very independent but my mental chains were tying me to a man I was hopelessly in love with - the problem is that it was an abusive relationship, mentally and financially.  And so Edna's 'rebirth' or 'awakening' speaks dear to me as I have awakened oh so many times: (1) to recognize myself as an individual but to remember my relationship to others around me,  (2) to become more socially aware and to actually care and to get angry about issues, angry enough to want to do something, (3) to be aware of the horrific suffering of animals that was just 'food' to me in the past, to be completely moved by my willful blindess to this large scale suffering, brought out extreme guilt in me..  which I am still in the process of reconciling.  I have been seeking a Krishna last year to teach me, to tell me what to do...  I realize later rather than never that only I, hold the answers to my own internal dilemmas..  but dialogue certainly helps.  To hear different perspectives.  I try to convey this in my work, when students ask me "What should I study?", "What should I become?" and so forth.

It is sad that Edna ends her life abruptly at the end.  I have experienced depression/despair - I think we all have and can understand the pain that one feels when one is grieving or in despair.  I would certainly never advocate suicide as the solution but I can understand wanting to end the pain or to die rather than to live in chains, be it real or metaphorically speaking.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (ch. 1-4) - Mary Wollstonecraft

A lot that was said in Wollstonecraft's text back in 1792 seems to eerily still ring true.  Much has changed but much also has not.

Women tying their pride and self-worth on her looks still sadly ring true today.  Decorating yourself and spending a lot of time and money on it is generally still the norm.  The justifications that I have heard from this activity include
(1) I work hard and I deserve to treat myself - in other words, materialism and consumerism become the material (false) reward for our Protestant Work Ethic, a prevalent idea that doesn't get investigated enough!
(2) I was to look sexy and good to the opposite sex and also make myself feel good - in other words, mistaking dressing scantily and getting cat calls or other objectified "compliments" as a form of empowerment.

I, too, fell into this trap of a mindset.  Gender roles and expectations are taught and reinforced to us from childhood and into adulthood.  Pink is for girls, trucks are for boys, women don't become carpenters and so on.  Well, says who?!  I agree with Wollstonecraft that education is an important tool for women's empowerment, but not just rational education but spiritual education too.  Education is but a tool, women must also know how to apply the knowledge that they obtain.  Why is it that despite the relatively high level of education of women in the West received, we not the less subscribe to shallow activities that relate to our vanity and thus to our self-worth?  Is it because our sensibility takes our our rational mind?  The 'wants' often overtake the 'needs' after all.

Keeping women and other people of colour ignorant was certainly a clever ploy of some powerful men of the past.  Obedience is consider a virtuous value - why is that?  This still rings too today.  Women who stand up and speak their minds get labeled male-like or 'not a good' girl (if she is a young woman).  The false bias of women as children is still around today.  Just last week, a colleague of mine referred to one woman in her 40's as a 'girl'.  I think he realized his error and tried to save his face by telling me, "It was only a joke".  This concept of obedience as a good virtue is similar to how we consider a dog, a good dog - essentially by his obedience.  Something to think about.

Julie, or the New Héloïse - Rosseau

The first thing that struck me about this text is the role reversal of 'norms'. In Abelard and Heloise, Heloise was the 'weakling' where as in Julie, Julie commands over the male partner, Saint-Preux.  Julie is the teacher vs. Abelard as the teacher. In some ways, Saint-Preux seems more passionate to me that the female whereas it is the opposite in A&H.

Very evocative language, very passionate.

Merging of characters (shared thoughts and feelings) (58, 115) - a love based on virtue rather than the physical/tangible - reminiscent of the divine love as advocated by Socrates in Plato's Symposium.

The concepts of benevolence, virtue and duty reminds me very much of Mencius.  Ideas replicate themselves around the world at different times.

Music and the arts a production of passion (106) - agreed! Although one can produce 'art' by just copying a piece of work, these types of work tend not to move people emotionally.

Humanitarian politeness (107) - an important concept! and so much more meaningful than politeness based on rank/class.  Perhaps a little lacking these days (and perhaps always).  In a sense, one is being virtuous and true to one's self, to one's principles.  Like Antigone although one could argue she wasn't exactly polite...

I do not agree with Rosseau that virtue means doing duty to family.  I do but not if your family is abusive, which I believe to be the case in Julie's case, concerning her father, more specifically.  Duty is a double edged sword like love or folly.  Duty to family should not be the absolute cases.  It needs to be a general rule but make room for a case to case basis (like Hume's philosophy).

The concept of virtue seems a bit strange to me.  In a way, it seems to be self-hating in denying your own happiness and to deny yourself the person who loves you and vice versa.  I do believe in the mantra that you need to love yourself to love others and you cannot do this if you are unhappy.  As such, to remain unhappy is doing a disservice to own's self and all others.  Virtue is a bit of a loaded term I suppose much like love, passion, etc.  As Steve said, through our modern lens, we would have wanted Julie and Saint-Preux to have eloped, start a new life - this in many ways seems more virtuous to me.

Treating slaves better is 'progress' but not really at the same time - it is a band aid solution and should not be accepted as virtuous!

I do appreciate his critique of high society however and the corrupting effects of institutional rules and the lack of autonomy resulting from this restriction.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume

I definitely agree with Hume that both reason and sentiment/passion constitute morality.  Reason and passion are not separate realms to me - they are one, a continuum within a circle.  Why does western traditions tend to create seemingly so much more dichotomy than eastern traditions?

I think about my veganism and my very, very strong feelings on animals.  I care about animals.  I care deeply for my companion dog, Kaslo. To me, the thought of eating meat is akin to the thought of eating Kaslo.  That is how strong my feelings are.  While I have multiple rational reasons for not consuming or using any animal or animal by products, it is really my sentiment on animals that acts as the glue that holds my rational thoughts together.

That said, I do not know if I would say that passion trumps reason or vice versa.  They're both important in their own ways.  Some of Hume's writings reminds me of Mencius' writings.  Hume talks about the utility of morality in which one acts never fully in self-interest but in the interest of others/public whole.  Morality and good conduct helps to maintain a sense of order, civility and justice in society.  This is reminiscent of Mencius' theory that duty/benevolence to family will create a domino effect of duty/benevolence to society, to the state, etc.  The benefits of morality increases exponentially from one to many.  Morality is definitely a good system of governance if it works - if in theory, people abide by good morals and do their duties to themselves, to family, to friends, to society.

Love the shift away from abstract and religious dogma of morality that we have been reading so much of.

Afterclass thoughts: I will still have to agree that while sometimes the is and the ought cannot be reconciled logically, we feel that there is a right and a wrong action.  Rationalism is a great way to organize one's thoughts but rationalism is not universal, especially in the realm of spirituality and morality.  Perhaps that is why the union of strong sentiments that accompany rational thoughts is called the thinking heart by Mencius.  Even in the West, the heart is used as a symbol for benevolence and compassion.  Sentiment and rationalism are both important elements in our decision-making process - they cannot be separated or be pitted against each other.

What is Enlightenment? Kant

The freedom to make public reasoning while dutifully using our private use of reason - a topic that is very relevant today.  It seems like this is what is encouraged today. Get up, go to work, work hard for eight hours, go home exhausted.  Got beef against economic injustices and environmental degradation?  Write a letter to the Premier.  Sign a petition.  Business as usual.  Obey.  The minute you disrupt business (especially international trade), force and violence may be used against you.

Will we really reach public enlightenment through the method advocated by Kant?  Removal of religious dogma and tight state control is certainly a healthy start, I agree.  If we must conduct business as usual, how will social change really occur?  Would we not merely be paying lip service to issues of social justice and environmental degradation then?  How to create true resistance?  I agree with Kant that the contradictions arising from one's use of public vs. private reasoning creates dissent and resistance but how to activate this resistance in an experiential and material way?  I feel trapped in this paradox right now and have been for a long time...

I have to agree with Kant in some ways on revolution.  I believe that the Occupy Movement, the Arab Springs all constitute a very historical slow revolution.  But while people may be resisting, they may not all be 'enlightened'.  The issue of how to change people's awareness has been deep on my mind especially since 2009.  I struggled to make people see what I see on the issue of the Olympic Games in Vancouver and all around the world.  Now, in the context of the Occupy Movement, many have joined in with the cause but some are in the cause for self-interested reasons rather than for global justice.  The movement is diverse and it cannot be expected that thousands of persons all think alike.  This causes fractures in the movement.  The revolution cannot forge ahead with so much internal dissent.  Kant's discussion is still relevant today and of great importance - how to change the public's awareness and to create mass public enlightenment?  I have many questions but no answers... but the main thing to keep in mind is solidarity and to remember where the battle lies.  Internal bickering, egos must subsist in favour of the utility of the majority.  The 'battle' is not within the 99% at the moment - it is with the 1% and its supporters.

In Praise of Folly - Erasmus

A fantastic scathing critique of religious men, intellectuals and of those in power/of the upper class.  It seems timeless like it was written just yesterday!  I absolutely loooove the critiques in this book!

Sleep (as a follower of Folly) appears here as it does in Pilgrim's Progress.  What's with 'sleep'?  Maybe my classmates will be able to enlighten my slow mind...

I interpret Folly as humour in the part when she talks about wisdom withour folly would be unbearable and I think this true in many ways.  In this imperfect world of suffering, humour is an important coping mechanism.  Recently, at a friend's mother's 70th birthday celebration, her legs just gave out outside Hart House Restaurant and she fell and couldn't get up.  We later found out that she broke her hip.  The first thing that the parademic said to us was, "Okay, which one of you pushed her down?"  It made me laugh in a tense and stressful time.  There is certainly much wisdom (although incomplete wisdom) in Folly!

Then there is the darker Folly as discussed in class.  Perhaps Folly is a double-edged sword.  Love is generally known as something good.  We all desire love.  But love can bite you too as the rapper, KRS One notes in "Love's Gonna Get You".  He is talking about material love more specifically.  So although love is good, not love of everything is good.  You can transfer this philosophy to Folly as well.  Sometimes, it is wise to be foolish, to enjoy life, to take things easy and in perspective.  I didn't see Folly so much as 'two faced' as a classmate mentioned but rather that there are different degrees of Folly.

Erasmus' religion/God is one I can believe in.  Remove the dogma and ridiculous abstractions of religion and god and you are left with spirituality.  If there is one thing in common with most religion, it is that they all preach morality.  For a secular person like myself, I equate morality with humanity or humanism.  Can humanism thus be called a religion?  I think humanism is a form of spirituality - of connectivity with others and one's surroundings.

I didn't really know the background behind Erasmus and didn't realize until class that he was a bit of a fence-sitter and sought to reform the church from within.  I can understand why Steve would dislike this philosophy as my philosophy would be similar.  That said, I still enjoyed the text very much.  I prefer the darker humour in the last half of the book and not so much the lighter humour in the first half of the book.  I think the dark humour is so much funnier because it is sadly a true commentary on how things were (though exaggerated).

I am thinking back to King Lear's Fool.  When the truth is spoken truth a Fool (or satire/humour), it seems to be tolerate as Lear tolerates the wisdom of the Fool but banishes Cordelia when she speaks the truth.  Here, Erasmus is able to speak the truth about religious men and other privileged/upper class men pretty freely through a satire.

Pilgrim's Progress - Part I

In many ways, this text reminds me of Dante's Inferno.  Both are journeys towards salvation although the contexts are somewhat different.  A beautifully written tale.  I love the symbolism and themes in this text, minus the Christian message...  As with other Christian texts, I am finding it very, very difficult to plough through them.  It is extremely difficult to remove my bias about Christianity.  What irks me is the wrathful God and the "Love me or burn in hell for eternity" message.  It really is hard not to get angry at times... Ellie mentioned that this text is not taught in theology classes.  While this may be true, my partner tells me that he had to read/learn excerpts from this text in Sunday school.  Like Sarah, this makes my blood boil.  To poison children's minds, to put fear into them is plain wrong to me.  I know Ellie talks about various scholars' interpretation of this text but ultimately, this text was written with an intent that was not secular despite what modern scholars say/think/feel.  I understand that you can still interpret it in a secular way, nonetheless and make this text work for you, for your worldview.  I can appreciate the message of taking (reasonable) risks in life but none of this fear mongering stuff.  It's just absolutely appalling to me.

I think Ignorance is an unfair name for the character.  I didn't feel that he was ignorant.  He was at worse, Misguided and at best, Faithful/Obedient.  To have led a good life but to be cast to hell for eternity - wow, and you want me to love this God??  Bunyan, you're just not convincing me of your theology...

Best picture in my search of 'pilgrim's progress'

I do not believe in the Marxist interpretation that Ellie mentioned and am quite frankly baffled by this interpretation as someone who subscribes to Marxist ideology.  I see this story of salvation more in line with this line from Marx: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."  This happy-ending cautionary fairy tale (as I see it) is a lovely story but that is all it is to me.  The story gave the working class hope that there will be something better in some other world/life.  It gives them hope in their harsh conditions in this material world.  Sometimes, we just need hope and religion can provide such hope.  I get it but do not subscribe to it.

Like Rachel, I enjoyed the 'adventure' element in the first quarter of the story but as I progress through my 'journey' of this text, I enjoyed it less and less.  As mentioned above, it is really difficult to detach from the awful theology in this text...

The pilgrim goes through trials and tribulations, makes mistakes, learns from them, suffers and then with guidance, reaches salvation - very Dante's Inferno!

One thing that struck me in this text is 'sleep'.  Sleep appears for the most bad to be something bad, something that hinders you and puts you behind in whatever journey you journey.  A strong word like 'sin' was even used!  I am not too clear what sleep connotes.  The lack of faith in God?  Or a put-down of bodily/earthly functions?

Civility, Legality and Worldly Wiseman.  Earthly laws, desires and order cannot cleanse one of sins.  Salvation cannot come through earthly or human means.

The pilgrim journeys from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City and in between encounters wilderness, Giant and other creatures.  Perhaps this ties into Genesis in which wilderness denotes that one has strayed from the right path of God.  The spiritual (rather than the earthly) City is the ultimate destination as a place of comfort.

Map of Pilgrim's Progress